Gharr’s Style Manual: Part One

Style Manual: Part One Introduction

Because twitter has only got 140 characters per message, the author or communications person for Gharr often breaks the rules that might be accepted in normal documentation. Some notes about that are put here. Also the WordPress documents are not entirely separated from twitter, so both style on twitter and in WordPress is covered here.

Used to emphasize a group of one or more words that belong together: a Style Manual.

Acronyms

“Many acronyms are written in all capitals, such as NATO, BBC, JPEG. However some acronyms have gained common usage as ordinary, lowercase words; for example, we write scuba and laser.”

Planets

Mars

Earth

Science

The whole word or group of words are capitalized, unless it is widely used and known in a particular form for that particular audience.

Rayleigh Number

Big Bang

Laplace transform (commonly known)

Fourier transform (commonly known)

Orion Nebula, Messier 42, M42, NGC 1976

Milky Way

cat (common name)

Hill Cipher (Capitalized to bring attention to it, as it is not well known)

Artificial Intelligence

Spin Glass Physics

eigenvalue or eigenvector (italics are used instead to show that the words are special, and it is well-known, so is not capitalized as in normal in documentation here)

Fermat’s Last Theorem

Unusual Words

To highlight unusual words or to make words stick out in text. Normally a word like this is capitalized once, to draw attention to it and then left without capitols for the rest of the text (unless they happen to occur at the beginning of a sentence or in a heading). These particular words always use capital letters.

Italic

Used to make unusual words, or words that are used in an unusual way, or have a special meaning in that part of the text stick out.

Example: Am I to be led to believe that you are the star of that show? (an italic of utter disbelief possibly… and it tries to reflect the speaker’s voice changing slightly while speaking the “you” word)

Also note that “you” is used instead of you, when giving a word as an example. This rule also applies to letters: “The ‘g’ in Rayleigh Number (Ra)….” not “The g in Rayleigh Number (Ra)….”

Quotes & Block Quotes

Didn’t you say “I am going to do that first thing tomorrow?”

Headings

Gharr often likes headings to be all in capitols: Symbols At The End Of Text

Gharr does on occasions use colors in headings: Symbols At The End Of Text

The colors in headings are often used for lower level headings H2–H6.

It’s important to remain in the same style for the whole document whenever possible. The individual document should also look good, and generally stick to the rules outlined here. This heading for example did not obey they above rule:

Material Placed at the Very End of a Page or Post

If you vary the rule in a document, it is better in most cases to apply that rule to the whole document.

Humor

Don’t use humor on twitter in documents. If you feel it is a must then keep it to the absolute minimum. Gharr does promote comedians, and occasionally an article has parts that are funny.

When you deal with people from all over the world, they often don’t get jokes, and what is focused on as funny often varies from one region to the next. Gharr’s audience is made up of many people from all over the world and humor can make people feel left out or isolated–something to be avoided in this particular case.

Gharr is not focused on dividing segments into different groups based on humor.

Mention

The mention: a space or symbol before the text message is used to make sure all Gharr’s followers see the message; as Gharr prefers that all comments are public.

This is not something Gharr wants to occur in most cases. Every tweet should also have the opportunity to promote things to the public. To force this to happen, a symbol or space is put before the twitter name:

~ @twitter_name <message>; example: ~ @twitter_name hello.

Symbols Before, In, And After A Text Message

Symbols Before Text

Because of the mention (discussed above), symbols are common on Gharr’s tweets.

These additional symbols convey special meanings at the start of a text messages.

On twitter, the globe turns out to be a blue and green color, and symbolized that the following information has some geographic information in it. A music symbol “♬” would mean that music is mentioned in the text.

When you click the link, it takes you to a website that plays music. This is a common feature of websites that have music on them, and the symbol is strengthened by the use of the tags. While not strictly an online radio, websites like this can be quite entertaining to visit.

Translation symbol “//”

This symbol does not care about what side the two words or phrases occur.

used in this way:

Seven Stars // 「セブンスター」

「セブンスター」// Seven Stars

Japanese word Kana//仮名 (pseudonym, false name)

In the West if a person uses a pseudonym, a word to indicate it is not normally included in the name. It may be included in a paragraph below the name in twitter, but that is optional. Clearly @name2456 is a pseudonym for example, but many people on twitter will not bother to mention such things.

kanamonkey for example can be translated into “… a.k.a. monkey” for English speakers.

On twitter the shorter version of this “a.k.a. monkey.” is used by Gharr:

Punctuation Marks On Twitter And Possibly In documentation Also.

Ellipses …

Ellipses are used in a sentence or paragraph that has parts left out. It is often used by writers using existing material.

Ellipses: “…sentence or paragraph [with]… parts left out.”

Writers producing their own work may use ellipses to indicate that they could have added additional things, but chose to not do so. This pause, can indicate other things also.

Mary is a great writer… I have enjoyed reading every book she published.

Em Dash —

In a document style is not important, what is important is what the reader is conditioned think and the overall way the document looks to the reader. This is what makes a document fun and easy to read. To achieve this it is better to break style then risk loosing the reader.

Often used as a substitute for brackets (). Brackets in documents and text tend to bore the normal reader; but are often used in science.

Everyone (even Bill) thought it was a bad idea. Everyone—even Bill—thought it was a bad idea.

FOR THE END OF A SENTENCE, OR NEAR A PUNCTUATION MARK: ONLY ONE EM DASH IS NEEDED.

The mixer (a cyclone 330A), was the most useful thing I had in the kitchen. The mixer—a cyclone 330A, was the most useful thing I had in the kitchen.

To Highlighting Something

I admit it! I was the one that ate the last cookie in the house. I don’t feel guilty at all—I enjoyed it.

Not Often Used On Twitter

A BREAK IN THOUGHT

Well yes I’m—well no, you’re right.

AN INTERRUPTION (NOT USED ON TWITTER)

I have been continually interrupted here, I was just about to say—

A SHIFT AND OVERLAP BETWEEN SPEAKERS (FOR INTERVIEWS)

In interviews on twitter, it can be hard to show how the time line actually evolved. Some times a little extra punctuation can help. Often when writing an article, or report every clue can help the author make sure the text is as accurate as possible. Articles mad for Gharr might be visited often, and revised quite some time after they were completed, so this sort of punctuation assists in reducing time wastage.

@bill That comment was uncalled for, as I was— (this indicates the author meant to stop here, and has not made an error in recording the text. A pure copy of the text would not have this, and since references are often used: the original text can still be accessed in a lot of cases).

@Jack @bill you are wrong, face up to facts!

@bill @Jack You won’t even let me finish typing my reply. Have you no decency?

The Possessive Noun

Only people can own things, so a possessive noun only applies to such cases.

Exception 1: a group of people can possess things. That is the Hockey Club’s Field;

Exception 2: Under law, a company can be considered to be a person (prevents a single person from taking the fall when a company fails, and also limits the amount of money that will be lost when problems do occur). Example: “The company’s reports stated…”

Exception 3: People or companies can not own slaves (other people). Thus we might use the word company as a descriptive noun in such cases “these are the company employees who….” rather than “these are the company’s employees.”